Laurence Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
by Nutter101
Summary: Having lived for years with her resentful Aunt, abused Laurence Potter must navigate her way through an unfamiliar world and towards her written destiny. AU. Fem!Harry


**Chapter I: Closed Doors**

Petunia Dursley hated her niece.

There was precious little, in her mind, to like about the child and, had she had any option, she'd have been dumped out in a forest somewhere to fend for herself long ago.

As poor luck would have it, Petunia didn't have that option; only the demand that she take her niece in without question and raise her as her own. But how could a woman possibly raise a child as their own when she felt nothing but resentment for that child?

She hadn't thought too highly of her sister, the child's mother, either. Perhaps she didn't resent her sister as much as she did her niece, but it had been just as much Lily's fault as her daughter's; the reason why Petunia no longer had a family.

Lily was a witch (and, even coming from Petunia, that wasn't an insult.) With a great talent for magic, Lily had attended a school specifically for her own kind. Her parents had doted on her; so proud to have a child with magical capabilities. Petunia had despised her for it.

In one respect, however, Petunia might have said it served her right, for her talent ultimately got her killed. She'd never told her niece the truth; it was far easier for Petunia to demonise her, and her husband, as alcoholics with no care for the safety of their child; with her niece's father, James Potter, having driven their car over a cliff while in a state of intoxication. The girl herself often wondered how she, a babe at the time, could have ever survived such an incident while her parents perished on the sands of Dover. Then she'd begun to wonder how she'd ever been found when her Aunt and her family had been in Surrey, warm and safe in their beds. Petunia told her off for asking questions.

That was one rule Petunia had always expected her niece to abide by: _Don't ask questions_. Questions required answers and Petunia considered herself to be above explanation, insofar as her niece was concerned.

As it was, the child didn't ask questions. She didn't really speak much at all. She'd learned long enough ago that her voice grated on her people's nerves; Petunia told her so, and she couldn't really understand why her Aunt would lie about something like that. No, she only spoke if she was spoken to. Truth be told, she tried to avoid conversation where she could. She'd rather bury her nose in the _Oxford English Dictionary_ than talk to people.

Of course, not asking questions was just one of many rules in the top-floor, two-bedroom flat. Others included a non-negotiable seven o'clock bedtime, non-negotiable chores and the subject of friends was not to be even discussed. She wasn't allowed friends and had never had one. She doubted she'd know what to do with a friend if she had one. There had been one or two children at school that looked in her general direction and smiled, but they never got much of a smile in return. She didn't smile much. She supposed there were people in worse living arrangements than herself but she never felt much like smiling. Did she even know how to smile?

She was sure her Aunt Petunia did; after all, she, at least, did have friends. Oh, yes, they did speak about her behind her back. Once upon a time, she was at their level of social acceptance, but many years had passed since then. She hadn't been at that level since she was a teenager.

Once she'd turned eighteen, she moved to Surrey with Vernon Dursley and, soon after, married and had one son.

She didn't live in Surrey now; hadn't for ten years. She'd returned to her native Birmingham following the deaths of her husband and son, her property and assets having been seized by her sister-in-law. She'd had no other option but to return to Birmingham.

The house she was raised in, however, was no longer there. It hadn't been there since 1979 when her parents were murdered. If she was honest, Petunia was the most unlucky person she knew: her sister was a witch; her parents had died as a result of people in her sister's world (witches and wizards though they were, Petunia deemed them as little more than 'freaks.') Her husband and son had been murdered by those very same 'freaks,' her sister-in-law robbed her blind, and her sister and brother-in-law had died the same way as those she'd once been close to.

This was the primary reason she deemed her niece so repellent, of course, but she'd never explained it. The girl knew only that her Aunt did not like her. She didn't know she was also a witch with magical powers. She didn't know her Aunt blamed her for the deaths of her parents, husband, son, sister and brother-in-law. She supposed she must have done something very wrong as a small child, but Petunia had yet to tell her such.

Petunia sat primly on the embroidered settee; her eyes concentrated on her niece, seething with hatred.

Across the room, her niece sat at the rickety table writing.

"What have I told you, girl?" Petunia snapped, immediately on her feet and rushing to her niece's side. "Right hand only! Look at all that ink on the table!" Seizing the pen from her niece's left hand, she grabbed the girl by her elbow and hauled her to her feet. "You — clean— that— up!" she demanded, through now-gritted teeth. (She had to keep her voice down when she could help it; the walls in that flat had ears.)

Shaking, the girl dashed to the kitchen, almost falling over on the way, to fetch a dishcloth and a bottle of bleach.

Returning to the table, she began to scrub away the blue ink, which was dotted haphazardly on the kitchen table, before focusing her attention to the ink all up her arm. She'd never understood why, but it was almost as though her skin resisted bleach. She never needed gloves like her Aunt did (though getting Petunia to permit her niece to use them in the first place would have been a challenge.)

The first time she'd used bleach, she'd burned her hands. During a rather shrill reprimand from her Aunt, she'd witnessed her skin repair right before her very eyes. It were as though she'd gone back in time, for her hands had returned to their former burn-free glory. It were as though her hands were now inexplicably resistant to cleaning products.

"Right, girl, now get out. Go to your room. I don't want to see your face until teatime."

She didn't need to be told twice. Grabbing her books, the girl bolted to her room, her Aunt hot on her heels.

Before she was barely past the threshold, the door slammed shut and that familiar click of the lock resounded through her ears.

Dejected, she placed the books in the corner of her room before sitting on the threadbare, carpeted floor. She didn't even have a mattress, let alone a bed. Why should her Aunt be obliged to invest money in her when she didn't like her? Why should her Aunt leave the door unlocked so she could at least go to the bathroom when she needed it? Why did her Aunt lock her door at night? Why wasn't she allowed friends? Why did she barely even know her name? Aunt Petunia rarely, if ever, called her by name. It was a wonder she responded even to the teacher's five-day repetition for the forty weeks of the school year when they took the register every morning. Maybe they weren't even calling her these days. She'd often considered she was being overlooked because she never had days off. She wasn't allowed time off school. She could be on her last legs with gangrene and she'd still have to go to school.

Sighing, she resigned herself to the fact that she was not getting out of her room for seven hours.

Looking around the bare room, she focused her attention on the pile of books in the corner. They were all schoolbooks, or at least in some way educational. She'd never read a story. She wasn't allowed. Her Aunt Petunia never questioned why she would need to live in a fictitious world when the real world was so very disappointing. She'd considered her niece delusional enough without the addition of fantastical tales and dreams that would never come true.

Searching through titles, she came across a book on the Tudors and began reading.

Barely half an hour later, she heard her bedroom door unlock, as her Aunt threw it open. "You dare destroy furniture, girl? What's wrong with you?" she screeched, no longer caring if the neighbours heard or not.

Grabbing her by the hair, her she yanked her niece off the floor and into the main living area. "What's this, girl? You used bleach; look at that table!"

There, on the table where the ink had been, was a mark so pale it was unmistakably the product of corrosion by bleach.

"How many times do I have to tell you, girl?"

She was almost violently shaking her niece now; her niece who could find no words, providing Petunia cared to hear them at all.

"Answer me!"

But she couldn't. Her Aunt was often angry and every time it caught her niece by surprise.

"Laurence Imelda Potter, answer me right now!"

Attempting to form some semblance of a sentence, the girl, Laurence, stumbled over her words. Precious little came out of her mouth, except for a distinct sob.

"Don't you dare cry!" she shrieked, pulling harder on her niece's hair. "What right have you to cry? Money doesn't grow on trees and here you are destroying furniture like no tomorrow! You can pay for another one. I expect you to be at the Civic Hall this Saturday and if I hear from anyone you're acting out, then I swear, girl, I'll make you wish you'd never been born. Get in there!" she finished, finally pulling Laurence back towards her own room, throwing her down like a sack of potatoes and slamming and locking the door. With a loud rap on the door, she yelled once more. "And stop blubbering, freak-child!"

Behind the door, a very traumatised eleven-year-old lay crumpled in a heap on the floor, silently asking herself "Why?"

She never realised there was someone just outside the front door until her Aunt's signature shriek rebounded off the walls. She didn't care who it was, of course; only that the echo would cease perforating her eardrums. Still crying, she held her hands over her ears and began rocking back and forth, as though this action could somehow offer her a source of comfort. It didn't.

"_You_!"


End file.
